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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30040362">Alora Sex and the Lesbian Awakening</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words'>Measured_Words</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Art as Propaganda, Artists, Sixth House Smut Factory, Smut, Smut as Propaganda, comic books</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:35:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,459</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30040362</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Where do those comics come from?  How is Gideon able to get her grubby gay hands on them?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Worldbuilding Exchange 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Alora Sex and the Lesbian Awakening</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/gifts">Nary</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Vera tapped her finger on the table in that distracting way she had, and I glanced up from where I'd been inking the latest story.  Deadlines were tight, as usual, and it seemed I was going to have to walk her through another block.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"Okay, so. Trying to balance the notes from the Propaganda department with the ones we got from the Cohort censorship committee.  Do you think a midriff barring uniform design is striking the right balance?"</p>
<p>Well at least this was better than the sex-scene sound-effects debate we'd gotten into the day before.  You couldn’t have any of that stuff on the page, not more than a little leadup and some post-coital cuddling (depending on the characters), so it took a bit of creativity to convey the mood without getting too silly.  Unless that *was* the mood.</p>
<p>"Sounds good to me – that leaves room to have it slit open dramatically in a sexy sword fight later, but it still technically checks all the boxes we were given for uniforms standards."</p>
<p>"As long as the *jacket* is the right length."</p>
<p>I grinned.  It was hard to walk the line here, but very fun when you got it right.  "Exactly."</p>
<p>Vera nodded, going back to her sketches, leaving me to linger over the flimsy sheet in front of me. This was one of the heroic scenes where Alora Sex rallied the other Cohort troops to victory over the enemies of the empire, looking hot while doing it.  There wasn't one of these in every issue, but they were a great chance to slip in sponsorship materials.</p>
<p>I looked over and peeked at her latest design, and saw she'd completely forgone the uniform and was lovingly shading in Alora's nipples.  She glanced up and shrugged.  "Wouldn't it be great to work on an indie book, though? Nudity. Dicks.  Draw a dripping wet pussy. Draw Alora wiping the come off her face after she sucks off some captain. Uniforms that are nothing but shorts that say "Cohort" on the ass, for everyone.  This whole job is like a cock tease."</p>
<p>"I kind of like the challenge?"  I shrugged.  "Not that it wouldn't be nice to lovingly ink some more intimate anatomy, but its fun to take all their rules and play with them."</p>
<p>"If I didn't already know you were Sixth," Vera rolled her eyes, "I would now.  But seriously.  This has its moments, but I feel like I'm burning out on it."</p>
<p>"I get it – but let's get these pages banged out – so to speak.  And then, I dunno, we can talk about it over lunch?"</p>
<p>That caught her by surprise, but thankfully, she smiled.  "Sure, that'll work."</p>
<p>Lunch was just carving out a little corner in the cafeteria.  We did usually eat together, so it wasn't that unusual, but typically we just covered the usual bitching about work.  This felt a little different somehow.  </p>
<p>"So," I started off, "it sounds like you've maybe been giving this some actual thought?"</p>
<p>"Just a little."  She was trying to sound nonchalant.  "I just think Propaganda is limiting itself a bit.  Alora Sex is okay, she's sexy, she's fun, but that official endorsement really ties our hands. I get that they're trying to have a broad reach and all, but I don't know how much longer I can stand it, honestly.  And I have all these great ideas – stories, not just sexy pictures.  But you know – plenty of those.  Even if we could put half the stuff on the page that we hint at – and if I never had to draw another product placement – I'd be okay with that."</p>
<p>I listened, pushing my food around on my plate.  "Honestly, Vee, I've been thinking about this some too.  Maybe a different angle though.  But you're right – the Sex books have got that suggestiveness down, they've got a strong market.  I think they're doing what they're supposed to.  Minor complaints aside I think even the Cohort's convinced that they're working to increase enlistment.  The number crunchers for the Nireids seem convinced that they're increasing those expectations and disseminating the stereotypes we want, so the House is happy.  I do think targeting those more, uh, niche markets, as you say, could do us even more good.  But those are the arguments they're going listen to, more than 'but I wanna draw Cohort Cavaliers Gone Wild 'cause it'd be hot."</p>
<p>"But it would be hot."</p>
<p>"Sure, I'm just saying, what makes the Prop-heads horny is spreading the idea of the slutty Sixth, the repressed librarians who just need to get fucked, so that we can bring in all those sexy, sexy new genes.  Sell that story first, then you can draw the smut – and, you know, still keep our actual assignments here and not get shuffled off to do data analytics or something else dull as fuck.  We're not the Seventh, no one is going to just let us do art for art's sake.  I love the idea of going independant but you know we don't have the resources for that.</p>
<p>Vera stabbed her fork into her plate and grumbled.  "Why do you have to be such a fucking realist, ugh.  Okay, but you'll help me, right?  You're good at all this rationalization.  I feel like a disappointment to all our carefully curated genetics work.  I'm not a scientist.  I just want to draw impossible hot people fucking."</p>
<p>"I'll help. We can storyboard it, you can make some sketches – after we wrap up out current deadlines, okay?  And once we have something to show, we'll take it to…"</p>
<p>"Invigilator Sieta.  You can do the talking but I know what she's into.  And its big tittles getting sucked, which, coincidentally I love to draw."</p>
<p>"See Vera," I grinned, "there's those genes shining through."</p>
<p>-----------------------</p>
<p>"You want to destroy the servitors, you ingrateful brat," Crux had bellowed, the foetid breath spraying into her face as decrepit as everything else about her home, "then you can take their place!  Get that shuttled unloaded now, Nav."</p>
<p>It was terribly unfair, but that was par for the course.  Even Aiglomene had seemed pretty unimpressed.  Okay, so maybe she could have picked better targets to practices her sword forms, but there were so many skeletons, and Nonagesi-bitch basically shit them out without thinking so who really cared?  </p>
<p>The crates on the shuttle were pretty heavy for an eleven-year-old, but Crux stuck around to 'supervise' for the first hour, gibbering in delight at her misery.  The shuttle pilot looked uncomfortable, but didn't seem inclined to get involved in whatever Ninth house nonsense what happening.  She also didn't seem inclined to intervene when Gideon decided to take an unauthorized break shortly after the marshal wandered off to go torment someone else.</p>
<p>One of the smaller crates had a logo she recognized from the training room, and out of curiosity, she pried it open.  Inside were stock stacked cans of a product she was all too familiar with: the polish that was used to treat all their functional weapons.  She'd spent many hours on that thankless task, and may have decided to 'misplace' the contents if she hadn't been distracted.</p>
<p>Tucked into the side of the crate was a small, colourful booklet of flimsy.  The logo was splashed across the front, along with another that she vaguely recognized as belonging to the Cohort.  She knew instinctively that she was not supposed to be looking at this, but splashed across the page was an image of a woman whose midriff shirt was stretched tight across her ample bosoms.  There was no turning back.  She slipped the booklet into her tunic, hurrying through the rest of the unloading so that she could find somewhere private to investigate…</p>
<p>Gideon's education had been somewhat sporadic, so she wasn't 100% clear on all the detail of the story.  She got the gist – there were bad guys.  There was a beautiful woman with a sword.  She was a glamorous hero of the Cohort. There was violence and… something else.  In one shot, she posed on a stack of armor polish crates, sword raised as she addressed her allies, her body beautifully, if unnaturally, contorted to show off the curves of her ass and tits.  Her uniform strained to hold them all in, and by this point a tear in her top hinted at the bare flesh that lay beneath.  Little Gideon did not understand what exactly made this so fascinating, but after that, she never missed a shuttle unload and her chance to pilfer the latest issue. By the time she was thirteen, the comics were advertising titles even more tantalizing than the Amazing Adventures of Alora Sex, and Gideon was determined to get her hands on them one way or another.</p>
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